In November Palo Magazine likes to feature our Senior Citizens. We like to honor the older generation that has carved the way for us. This month I’m a bit bias and I’m featuring my own senior mom just because she truly deserves it.
This year she turned seventy-four and while it wasn’t a marker birthday like seventy-five or eighty, I felt that after surviving COVID we all need to celebrate ourselves a little more and especially our loved ones, and not always wait for the supposed perfect moment. Besides this year she is also celebrating her 50 years of coming to Reading, Pa. She came here at the age of 24 feeling all alone, scared, not knowing how to even read or write in her own language, and surely not knowing any English at all. Just a suitcase and her hopes and dreams that were quickly shattered by an abusive relationship, but she came out a survivor and as a single mother raised 5 wonderful children.
In September we did a surprise party for her with all of her children, except my brother who is no longer with us, and celebrated in a sweet seventy-four style party. We went all out and made her feel extra special by inviting her favorite neighbors and all her children and grandchildren and she was so grateful. Sometimes we forget that seniors get lonely, depressed and they even feel they aren’t needed any longer and that is where illness begins.
Let’s not forget that it’s not all about popping bottles in the club as they say these days it’s also celebrating the ones that brought us here, let’s show them the respect they deserve and have them know that we do care about them, and we will never ever forget them and what they have sacrificed for us to be here today. With that being said, let’s extra celebrate the elderly this 2021-2022 and let them know how much we love them. Congratulations to all the seniors who made it and I’m not talking about high school seniors but rather, the seniors of life. Congratulations!
Rosa Julia Parra
CEO & Editor